No Morality Without The Bible?

From *The Skeptical Review*, 1994 / January-February:

 

by Farrell Till

Of all the arguments that fundamentalists resort to in their defense of the Bible, none is more ridiculous than their claim that the Bible is necessary for people to know how to live moral lives. They arrive at this conclusion through a series of assumptions. Their first assumption is that God exists, and onto this assumption, they pile another one: morality (and they even make it an absolute morality) emanates from the nature of God. Then, of course, they assume that their God, in verbally inspiring the Bible, revealed absolute morality to mankind. Hence, man must rely on the Bible to know what is moral and immoral. They envision life without the Bible as a moral chaos reminiscent of ancient Israel before the time of its kings when "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25).

The whole superstructure of this argument is built upon another assumption that is incredibly cynical on the part of a group that delights in condemning the pessimism of philosophies that question the existence of God. This assumption is that man is incapable of making moral decisions without divine guidance. In other words, man must have God's help or else he just can't determine for sure what is right and what is wrong.

Were it not for the seriousness of fundamentalist attempts to impose this belief on society in general, it would be too ridiculous to deserve comment. We have used human intelligence to cure diseases, split the atom, and invent a technology that has us reaching for the stars, yet Christian fundamentalists would have us believe that we are too stupid to discover that lying, stealing, and killing are harmful enough to the general welfare to be considered morally wrong. That view of life is about as pessimistic as any that can be imagined, infinitely more pessimistic than the mental action of a skeptic who questions the existence of an afterlife for which he can see no verifiable evidence.

This foundation belief of Bible fundamentalism is of course erroneous. It is even contradicted by the Bible itself. In Romans 2:14, the Apostle Paul said that the Gentiles, who had not received the law [of Moses] or, in other words, a revelation from God, had nevertheless sometimes done "by nature the things of the law" and were therefore "a law unto themselves." If this doesn't mean that Paul believed that the Gentiles who had no divine revelation had discovered morality on their own, then pray tell what does it mean? So even if the existence of the biblical god could undeniably be proven, how could bibliolaters, in the face of this statement from their much revered apostle to the Gentiles, justify their claim that man must have direct guidance from God in order to live morally?

Any Loophole Will Do

From *The Skeptical Review*, 1993 / March-April:

by Farrell Till

The how-it-could-have-been scenario is a common tactic that fundamentalists use to "explain" passages in the Bible that pose serious problems for the inerrancy doctrine. They like to believe that as long as they can suggest an interpretation that removes the spectre of contradiction or discrepancy from a problem passage, then they have preserved the inerrancy doctrine, no matter how far-fetched or unlikely the interpretation may be. They insist that just as long as the interpretation is not absolutely impossible, they are justified in believing that it could have happened or could have been the way the interpretation explains away the problem.

Christian Apologetics In A Nutshell

If two things don't fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that's credulity.  --Umberto Eco

From Exchristian.net:

The Moral Development Test: A Fable

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) --

A preacher dies and finds his ghostly, semi-resurrected self outside a pearly gate. He is met there by a pleasant middle-aged man in shorts, sandals and Hawaiian shirt with a clipboard.

Preacher: “Thank god! I made it!”

Clipboard Man: “Sir?”

“Heaven. I made it to heaven.”

“No, I’m sorry, this isn’t heaven. Oh, well… through the gates is heaven, yes, but I’m afraid I have bad news for you.”

(His eyes widening in fear) “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m afraid you’re going the other way.”

“Oh no! Hell!”

“No, of course not. There is no hell. Never was. No, you’re going back to the earth to try again.”

“Try again?”

“Yes. You see, you have failed the Moral Development Test, or as we call it around here, the MDT.”

“But I’m a man of the cloth! I have prayed every day since I could talk. I have brought thousands into the fold, and studied and taught the Bible reverently!”

“Yes, well, you may have taught it, but you did not understand it because you lacked moral development.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, anyone with the most rudimentary moral development recognizes that the god of the Bible is not worthy of worship. That god is not the real god, you see. That god was written into the book to test humans’ moral development. If you had achieved a basic level of moral development, you would have realized that a god who creates evil, as is clearly stated in Isaiah 45, drowns children, as described in the story of the flood, and creates and maintains a torture facility for the majority of humans, called hell, does not deserve the worship of anyone. One does not need to be an expert on morality to see that. The test only requires a most basic level of moral development, which, unfortunately you clearly lack. Now if the fealty you have demonstrated to the God of the Bible was simply a matter of fear, without true worship, as it often is, we might have made an exception. We sometimes do. But, given that you repeatedly recommended that others worship that god, I’m afraid we can’t help you. In fact, you are going to have to go way back to a very long and difficult life because you are also guilty of the Prime Falsehood.”

(Now visibly shaking) “What’s that?”

“The Prime Falsehood is the teaching of the hell concept to children. I’m sure you are blissfully unaware of the grief, nightmares and horrid anxiety you have caused so many of those trusting innocents, but that is no excuse. You are not aware simply because you failed to seriously ask how a moral god could doom the majority of humans to everlasting torture. You see, it is a simple question with a very simple answer. No MORAL god could do such a thing. And a spare moment’s reflection would have revealed to you that children don’t need to know about hell to be moral. Lucky for you there is no hell, I’d say, considering what you have done.” (Shakes his head sadly.)

“But I didn’t know! I was raised in the faith; I was taught not to question!”

“But you did question. Everyone does. You simply turned your back on what you began to discover. You always had doubts about the morality of the god of the Bible, everyone does. But you closed off your mind and thought yourself done with it. You thought you wouldn’t be held responsible for just accepting what you were told. It didn’t feel right, but you just ignored that. Too bad, really. You are certainly smart enough. You just never achieved basic moral development. Anyway, you wait here and you will soon be joined by someone who will show you the way back. Oh, I almost forgot. Unfortunately, from this point forward you will have no memory of this discussion. You must learn for yourself. Good luck and I sincerely hope you make it this time.”

Call The Police--There's A Crazy Man At My Door!

And the Christian "message" continues.

The Conspiracy Theory as a Persuasive Device

The following is a comment by Farrell Till to "OSM", a 

Christian apologist--from the Yahoo errancyn discussion

group, May 3, 1999:

Another posting discussed the way that persuasive devices are 
used by those who want extraordinary claims to be believed. A 
common persuasive device is the "conspiracy theory," which is 

most commonly used to explain the absence of evidence that 

one could reasonably expect would exist if an extraordinary claim 

were really true. Probably the best contemporary example that 

I could cite would be the famous Roswell incident. UFO buffs claim 

that an alien spacecraft crashed at Roswell, NM, some 50 years 

ago. The simplest way to prove that this happened would be to 

produce the wreckage of the spacecraft and the bodies of the 

aliens who were aboard it, but no such evidence has ever been 

produced. UFO believers have an explanation for the absence 

of this evidence: the U. S. government has classified all of the 

evidence and kept it from public viewing. In other words, the 

U. S. government has conspired to hide from the public that this 

incident actually happened.

Christian apologists will sometimes resort to the conspiracy 
theory to explain the absence of any disinterested contemporary 
references to Jesus of Nazareth or extraordinary events that 
should have caused secular records to make some mention of 
them. They argue, with no evidence to support it, that the 
enemies of Christianity destroyed all such records in order to 
contain the spread of Christianity. In other words, the enemies 
of  Christianity conspired to destroy secular records that referred 
to Jesus of Nazareth, and that is why no such records exist. 
 Some apologists have even used this theory to explain why 
there are so many similarities in Christianity and pagan religions,
such as, the virgin birth of a savior-god and his resurrection 
from the dead. They actually argue that Satan arranged for 
such beliefs as these to develop in paganism prior to Christianity 
so that when the real thing came along, people would reject it 
as just another tale of a virgin-born, resurrected savior. In other 
words, Satan conspired to arrange history so that the coming of 
the real savior would be less credible.

In recent weeks, we have been seeing OSM's resort to a variation 
of the conspiracy theory in the matter of the Roman guard that 
was allegedly posted at the tomb of Jesus. The extraordinary 
claim of the gospel writers that Jesus had actually risen from the
dead certainly needed persuasive devices to make it credible, and 
Matthew filled his crucifixion/resurrection part of his gospel with 
such devices: (1) A Roman centurion seeing events that happened 
at the time of Jesus's death allegedly said, "Truly this was the son 
of God." This was the familiar device of corroborating testimony
from hostile sources. (2) An earthquake allegedly opened the 
tombs of many saints, who rose from the dead and went into the 
city where they appeared to many witnesses. This, of course, 
would be the device of eyewitness testimony (which in this case 
turns out to be only uncorroborated hearsay). (3) Witnesses 
allegedly saw the body being wrapped in linen cloth and placed 
in a tomb. (4) A Roman guard was allegedly put at the tomb as 
a precaution to keep the body of Jesus from being stolen from 
the tomb. (5) Witnesses allegedly saw the tomb opened and an 
angel telling them that Jesus had risen from the dead. (6) The 
guards were allegedly bribed to say that the disciples of Jesus
had come and taken the body of Jesus out of the tomb while 
they slept. At this point, Matthew turned to the device of accusing 
the enemies of Jesus of conspiring to hide the truth from the 
general public.

There is no reason at all why #6 cannot be viewed as just a 
variation of the conspiracy theory, which Matthew used for no 
other reason than to give some semblance of credibility to an 
otherwise unbelievable tale. In the resurrection narratives, the 
gospel writers were saying, without actually spelling it out, 
"You see, these things did happen, because people saw them," 
but in Matthew's case, he provided the added device of the
conspiracy theory. He was telling his readers, even the enemies 
of Jesus know that these things happened, and to keep the 
public from knowing that Jesus had risen from the dead, they 
conspired to hide the truth by bribing the Roman guards to say 
that the disciples of Jesus stole the body while the guards were 
sleeping. There is no more reason to believe that the bribery 
of the guards actually happened or even that a guard was
placed at the tomb than there is to believe that a Roman 
centurion actually said, "Truly this man was the son of God," 
or that an earthquake opened the tombs of many saints who 
were resurrected and seen by many people inside the city. OSM 
likes to talk about such and such having "the ring of truth." Well, 
in my opinion, this tale about the Roman guards and their bribery 
has the "ring" of just another persuasive device that a writer 
used to try to give some semblance of credibility to an 
unbelievable story.

OSM has said that if this tale about what the guards had said 
were not true, then those who had lived at the time of the events 
would have said, "Hey, I don't remember ever hearing anyone 
say anything about guards who claimed that the body had been 
stolen," but I will be commenting on this is another posting about 
attempts to prove the incredible on the grounds of what would 
have or would not have happened if the claim were not true.

Just one more comment is in order concerning the tale that 
Matthew spun about the Roman guards. Besides the absurdity 
of thinking that Roman guards would have sealed their fate by 
saying that they had gone to sleep on duty, there is the matter 
of a serious flaw in what the guards were allegedly bribed to say. 
The chief priests and elders said to the guards, "Say that his 
disciples came by night and stole him away WHILE WE SLEPT" 
(Matt.28:13). In concocting this persuasive device, Matthew
showed little respect for the intelligence of the general public, 
because anyone with any ability at all to reason critically would 
wonder, "Well, if the guards were asleep, how could they know 
what happened to the body?" After seeing this flaw in the tale 
the guards were telling, what would have kept people from 
thinking that since guards who were asleep would not be able 
to know what had happened to a body that had vanished, maybe 
Jesus, as his disciples were claiming, had indeed risen from the 
dead while the guards, by their own admission, were asleep.
Hence, Matthew was actually saying that the guards had accepted 
a bribe to say something that would probably have resulted in 
their death but would not in any way have proven that Jesus did 
not rise from the dead as his disciples were claiming. If OSM 
wants to see this as some kind of wonderful evidence that the 
resurrection happened as claimed, then all I can say is that there 
is no law against gullibility, but he shouldn't assume that everyone 
else is as gullible as he is.

Divine Hygiene?

From *The Skeptical Review*, 2002 / May-June:

by Farrell Till

In the mailbag column of this issue (p. 12), Vallon England saw divine guidance in the Israelite Levitical law that required ceremonial bathing and various ritual cleansings. This is an argument that has made the rounds as long as I can remember. I even recycled it myself when I was a fundamentalist preacher. Usually, dietary restrictions are also touted as part of the divine guidance intended to protect Yahweh's "chosen ones" from diseases. He declared pigs unclean, so the argument goes, because pork can transmit trichinosis if it isn’t sufficiently cooked. If that was Yahweh’s concern in giving this law, one has to wonder why he didn’t just command that the meat be cooked thoroughly? Why ban the entire product when there is a simpler solution, but who am I to question the creative genius of the universe? 

 

If there is any merit at all to this argument, then surely there were health reasons for Yahweh’s ban on the eating of camels and hares (Lev. 11:4-6), fish without scales (v:9), and various birds like eagles, falcons, hawks, and owls (vs:13-19). What were these reasons? What risk to his health does a person take if he eats a catfish or a rabbit? Of course, we know that catfish and rabbits, as well as any other kind of food, would pose a health risk if it is contaminated, but the fundamentalist argument is that the danger from trichinosis was so overwhelming that Yahweh ordered "his people" not to eat pork at all. If this is so, then surely the omni-one had similar reasons for banning all the other prohibited foods in Leviticus 1l. What were they? Unless such dangers can be demonstrated, fundamentalists have no convincing argument in this matter. 

Probably nothing more than tribal custom and personal whims were involved in these dietary restrictions. As a nation, we avoid eating horse meat, whereas other countries consider it a delicacy. We don't generally eat insects either, but they are a staple in some parts of the world. The ancient Hebrews apparently ate locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers, because they were permitted under the dietary laws, whereas all other insects were prohibited (Lev. 11:20-23). Yuck! If I had written Leviticus, I would have banned all insects and thrown in broccoli for good measure. Whoever wrote this book had probably been conditioned by tribal customs to eat certain insects and not others, and so what he wrote reflected the tribal preferences and revulsions that he was accustomed to. In "Kosher Baloney," Dr. Tim Gorski, a physician in Arlington, Texas, wrote on this subject from a medical point of view to show that there is no basis at all for arguing that the Levitical dietary laws were Yahweh's way of protecting "his people" from health hazards. In his article, Dr. Gorski made a statement that is worth reconsidering.

Even allowing that these [previously listed examples] may be instances of kosher practices having some practical utility, this would hardly argue for their being of divine origin. The operation of natural selection on the simple process of trial and error would be sufficient to result in the prevalence of useful, and especially lifesaving traditions. Nor does anything in the Bible argue to the contrary. God never tells his "chosen people," for example, that the reason they’re to avoid pork or not mix milk and meat products is because of "creeping things" too small to see that can make them sick (The Skeptical Review, November/December 1998, p. 6).

If the Levitical dietary laws had contained any explanation for the restrictions, such as the one that Dr. Gorski mentioned above, that would have given biblicists a strong argument, because a reference to tiny or invisible "creeping things" that could cause illness would be hard to explain in a time when microscopic organisms were unknown. Without any direct reference like this, however, any apparent benefits that seem to be derived from some of the Levitical restrictions could be explained as nothing more than what Gorski mentioned above, i. e., the result of having learned through trial and error. After all, if even a primitive people observed outbreaks of illness (now known to be trichinosis) enough times after pork was eaten, it shouldn’t have taken them too long to conclude that eating pork was not a good idea.